The CB 8 transportation committee declined to vote on DOT's plan to extend the Second Avenue bike lane by the Queensboro Bridge.

True to form, last night’s Upper East Side community board meeting about bike lanes was a ridiculous carnival of kvetching. But oddly, most of it had nothing to do with the main project up for discussion: DOT’s plan to fill the gap in the Second Avenue bike lane from 68th Street to the Queensboro Bridge [PDF].

By and large, the people who came out to complain about bike lanes to Manhattan Community Board 8 wanted to bash a revived plan for painted, unprotected crosstown lanes on 84th/85th and 65th/66th streets.

These types of bike lanes don’t alter streets much at all, they just designate official space for cycling — which drivers treat more like a suggestion than a rule. But the 2016 plan to stripe three crosstown pairs of bike lanes in the neighborhood set off months of vituperativewhining at community board meetings. Striping thermoplast to mark off bike lanes would jeopardize kids and seniors, opponents said.

Total crashes on those streets declined 46 percent last year, and pedestrian injuries dropped 54 percent. Council Member Ben Kallos said his office received zero complaints about the bike lanes since installation.

None of that seemed to matter at last night’s meeting, which was dominated by complaints about cyclists running red lights, anecdotes about collisions and near misses, and demands that cyclists be licensed and insured like motorists — who pose far more danger on Upper East Side streets.

“It seems if you stand on Second Avenue or you stand in Central Park, you stand anywhere, bicyclists are rarely paying attention to signals — they’re decoration,” she said.

DOT seems unlikely to get the board’s support on the crosstown lanes, and an endorsement of the Second Avenue project may also be a stretch. No committee members spoke positively about either proposal.

Image: NYC DOT

The Second Avenue redesign fills a nine-block gap by the Queensboro Bridge, but the parking lane that provides physical protection won’t be in effect during the morning or evening peak. From 7 to 10 a.m. and 3 to 8 p.m., the project still maintains five travel lanes for cars. By prioritizing motor vehicle flow over the safety of cyclists, the design falls short of full-time protected bike lane segments on Second Avenue north of 68th Street, where the number of people cycling is up 105 percent, compared to just 36 percent on the segments without protection during rush hour.

Council Member Ben Kallos and members of Transportation Alternatives’ Manhattan committee to urged board members to endorse DOT’s redesign. They argued that incremental improvements were better than nothing.

“I appreciate the effort to clean up this very difficult intersection,” said Lois Kauffman, who lives on East 72nd Street between Second Avenue and Third Avenue. “The situation that has been proposed here leaves the bicyclist most vulnerable at peak times… It’s terrifying.”

“I know that folks would like to see a protected lane go all the way down to the 59th Street bridge. I’m hoping that this initial pilot… will take us the step in the right direction,” Kallos said.

Like CB 6 last week, the committee declined to vote on the Second Avenue plan, requesting a walk-through with DOT and pushing any possible endorsement to the fall. DOT is aiming to implement the project in November.

Hey, I did what I could – since I already had plans for last night, I e-mailed the CB8 Transportation chair to voice my support for the new bike lanes. Not sure it moved the needle much.

More important: after the last kvetch-fest, DOT installed the lanes anyway (and, as pointed out, safety went up and no one even complained to the local council member). I thought it was a gutsy move – so much easier for DOT to throw up its hands and say “hey, we tried, but ‘no-one’ wants these lanes”. Instead they did the right thing for public safety. Which makes me wonder, why even bother going to the community board? These meetings are rarely anything more than a place for cranks to sound off, so why waste everyone’s time and money when it comes to an obvious safety issue? What sort of issues actually benefit from getting aired at these meetings?

William Lawson

You could not pay me to attend that meeting. I’d have to be dragged out, kicking and screaming with the insufferable stupidity of the people around me. Apologies yada yada but the Upper East Side is my least favorite neighborhood in New York. I HATE it. I used to run a business up there and oh my god the most infuriating people in ABUNDANCE. One morning I sat eating in a bagel place on 86th and I can’t remember what holiday it was but there were a lot of families in there having breakfast and the cacophony of shrill, petty whining around me was just too much and I realized I had to work someplace else. And now I do.

Asher Of LA

The gratuitous Yiddish gives me such nachas.

AMH

“why even bother going to the community board? These meetings are rarely
anything more than a place for cranks to sound off, so why waste
everyone’s time and money when it comes to an obvious safety issue?”

So many people have asked this exact question. It is a pointless waste of time. Does ConEd go to the community before fixing a gas leak?

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